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The Week in Books (10/15-10/21)

Monday, October 22, 2012

This past week has been a pretty good reading week for me. I did finish a couple of reads, abandon one and start yet another. This year has been mostly a long phase of patchy reading, and while this is no sign of a change in that, it's nice to have weeks like these. Even though I tell myself that number of books read is not important as long as I am reading and enjoying what I read, it's still hard to not be disappointed that I only have 34 read books this year (and about 10-15 short stories).

This week I read...
- What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang, is a short story collection, which usually tends to never work for me. But I have to say that this book was tremendously enjoyable! I would even love to say that this is the book that changes my perspective on short story collections, but it's too early to say that.
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling: After two years, I'm again doing another reread of this series. The first few books are not as enjoyable to me as the last few, but there is always something different that I find captivating. This time, Hermione's

"We could all have been killed -- or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

cracked me up a lot.

Currently I'm reading...
- Things Your Dog Doesn't Want you to Know by Hy Conrad and Jeff Johnson: Every day, I read a few stories out of this hilarious book. I've found that to be the best way with this one, and each story is just two pages long. So far, some of the "revelations" have made me wish that our dog could talk so that I could confirm with her!
- American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis: I wanted to read this one for the Dueling Monsters, then changed my mind about it, and then Ti's review made me want to read it again! At page 40, I'm finding this book too boring and all the mentions of clothing, shoe and even toothpaste brands is driving me mad. Those of you who read it, please tell me that it gets better!

Picked at the Library
- Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie: If I make sufficient progress on the Psycho book, this chunkster is what I'm hoping to read the coming weekend.

Abandoned
- Vagina by Naomi Wolf: I wanted to read this one ever since I heard news about this title being censored over at Apple iTunes. Unfortunately, I managed only a chapter, as I got bored by the heavy descriptions of how sacred and mythical and <more adjectives> the vagina is.

I don't know that "better" is a word I would ever use in conjunction with American Psycho. The brand names become a kind of running commentary in the background. You tend to forget about it as he focuses on, ummm...other things.

The brand name dropping never goes away but you learn to appreciate them. Mainly because they are the only break you get in between the violence. Seriously, the name dropping didn't bother me at all by the time I was done with it.

I really want to re-read Harry Potter. I've read the first four books a few times, but I don't think I've reread the last three in a long time. I was thinking about doing a marathon over my Christmas break, but we'll see how it goes :)